Funny story.. my husband is trying his hand at growing mint, veggies (in pots on our deck). He harvested the mint yesterday. He was taking awfully long doing it while I wondered how long will it take to snip four stalks. Then I see him plucking individual leaves in the middle of each stalk, haha, leaving them ugly looking. I had to teach him about how they grew and where he should snip. City man!

That essay is a good one, Alex, if a bit lengthy. Still, if someone really wants to have a "dialog" about what to do about gun violence they'd do well to read it and actually make an attempt to understand it.

I also rather like this example explaining "why pro-gun people don't trust anti-gunners." http://www.aurorasentinel.com/opinion/perry-we-can-only-save-ourselves-from-kidnappers-at-the-nra/

(Short version for those who don't want to cut and paste the url... pro-gun people don't trust anti-gunners because they want us to die.)

Edutcher, 3 yrs ago I popped a tiny sprig of mint into the hard, reddish dirt that's my backyard. Last year I had to take the electric hedge clipper to it. It was humsn height. I noticed yesterday while preparing for the Derby that there's enough to make mint juleps for around a thousand people. I've designated it ground cover at this point. I just mow it like grass.

I planted six mint plants and they grew abundantly. Then one day one of them was stripped so I examined but couldn't find anything.

The next day a second plant was stripped so I examined but couldn't see anything.

The third da...

Look, you're all smart people, this went on until there was only one plant left so I examined REALLY FUCKING CLOSELY and saw GIGANTIC green caterpiller catapiller calipitter bug disguised like a mint plant.

And I'm all like, "Damn, Man, I betchya a big juicy bug like you outta taste like mint so I ate it.

Just back from our regular weekend dog adoptions. We found good homes for at least 10 dogs over the two days. That's a very good weekend for us.

Dogs go from the hiding on the street and certain death to warm loving homes, sleeping with full bellies and their heads in someone's lap.

I also love the effect it has on the lucky people who adopt. It's a wonderful thing to bring that little creature home, to take care of it, to show it love, and experience it's complete love in return. If you have a family and kids, this is especially great as you get to teach the yungins about this whole new facet of life - a relationship of caring and support with a completely different species - an amazing accomplishment for all involved.

we had a bird fly into the garage last year and all the kids were running around and screaming like maniacs, or kids, as the case may be. Anyway, he bird got trapped between a window pane and some boards I had leaning there. It kept trying to fly out the window to no avail obviously. So I went over and caught it in my hands and was carrying it outside. the kids all around me still screaming like I had a bengal tiger in my hands. Little bastard crapped on my hands. Last time I do a solid for a freaking bird.

I have two bird houses just a few feet from where I sit in my kitchen and do this internet thing. Both nests are currently full of chicks being fed continuously. Sometimes I hold up a piece of wet bread to the hole and their heads all pop out and fight over it. common House Sparrows (Passer domesticus).

Sometimes you just have a week where everything comes together. This was one of those weeks: At month end, the people I work with broke new records of sales, and productivity, while accomplishing an amazing level of innovation, and problem solving to meet some really tough expectations from our customers.

Despite the fact that we spend zero dollars on advertising and have no outside sales people looking for new business, our customers are rewarding us with record levels of demand to where we simply have to turn away business that a couple years ago we would have killed to get.

Much of that success is due to our decision just before the recession to commit to making everything we sell entirely in the U.S.A., even if we could save money getting it made elsewhere. We want to support this country with jobs, training, and confidence, and it's actually working.

I hope it's not taken as arrogance or bragging, because it's not that. I didn't do this, the people I work with did, and I’m just really happy for those people who do the right thing, work hard, and get rewarded for it. It's how it should be, and I want people to know it can work. We are just a small business, but there are many like us out here, and we are growing, because we play fair, but we play hard, and we value and enjoy hard work, we don't run from it, or send it overseas because it’s cheaper there. I only wish our government respected that, but regardless, we will do it anyway. It’s just what we do. Dogs gotta hunt.

The real problem with internet comment threads is, even for those who "know" other commenters, in reality, most, if not all, do not.

So, people say, and write, things they wouldn't say or write to people to they actually know.

Except, of course, Facebook discussions are equally horrific, so I guess I'm wrong on that point.

I guess, in short, it's harder to have a sincere discussion on the internet that doesn't devolve into a flame war than it is in real, live, sitting across the table from the person you're talking with.

It's a shame in one sense.

In another sense, I think human rage is quite natural - and, frankly, I'd rather have people engage in flame wars on the internet and waste countless innocent pixels than, you know, risk getting into an actual fight with someone.

Another one is that I used to be against gay marriage, then after discussions here, I realized no adult of any persuasion should be asking for my permission to have a relationship and a contract to go with it.

"My friend is a school teacher in the inner city and he said 70% of the kids aren't legal, they can't ask them, and 90% of them get free lunch....disturbing."

It will get worse before it gets better.

One feels for illegal immigrants, simply looking for opportunity.

And then, one sees one's brother's Swedish wife seeking citizenship run through the INS gauntlet like she was the criminal, and one comes to the conclusion that: 1) the Feds are fucked up beyond belief; 2) illegals need to go to the back of the line behind legal immigrants; 3) can our fucked up federal government finally secure the borders?

Or at least make a good faith effort to try?

I, seriously, do not give a shit where one is from, what color, race, nationality, sexual orientation, etc., etc., etc., one is, but can we all agree the laws need to be followed?

I thinking about the adulation for Collins for coming out and how much of it is undeserved when you consider his relatively well off position compared to the usual frightened gay kid out there like Mathew Shepard for example.

I think Althouse is brave... braver than Collins imho.

Freedom of expression is under assault everyday in the name of phony outrage.

Althouse doesn't need this potential liability hanging over her... I know there are probably more than one or two people combing trough every word she uses to try to use them against her.

I guess I'm talking to the people that were hard on her this morning.

If Althouse is doing this blog is because she enjoys the heck out of it... enjoys it as a fun and stimulating exercise.

Bobby put on a happening show at the St Augustine amphitheater. Mostly old time music styled music...good for all that. Played four old songs and was basically unintelligible the entire time. Par. Worth the $60 tickets X 2? Yeah. Weather was perfect. The blackberry Kush was delicious. Fun gathering. The band rocked and Bob was Bob.

Although, Mahal, you have to concede, as any rational man with any appreciable sense of aesthetics would have to, that AT&T Park, where my Giants play, is absolutely, hands down, no doubt, the best address in baseball.

People can go on all they like about how Althouse's posts about gay-related issues are "nonsense" or about how her brave commenters "push back" and, indeed, intelligent disagreement can be interesting and intellectually rewarding, but diluting and polluting that small portion of intelligent disagreement is a hell of a lot of demented, twisted, nasty shit. How many times can you point to commenters spewing blood-libel about gay men and HIV/AIDS, or half-assed, half-baked "theories" about the evolutionary fitness of gay people before it starts to sound like just another justification for bigotry?

Just because someone makes an unconvincing argument doesn't automatically make anyone opposing them worth reading.

I've long believed that stoves should be outdoors. It just makes a lot more sense. Why stink up the house with food odors? Why risk burning down the house if there's a grease fire? Why make a big mess when cooking french fries or frying bacon that you can't hose off with a pressure washer?

And the Friend of your Friend is Not Necessarily a Friend. Maybe an Acquaintance, perhaps an Opportunist. They still look through the Medicine Cabinet when they are visiting. I had 18 Trilafon before they arrived, I now have 14.

But, if the homosexuality/gay issue distorts one's view of the world, pro or con, second or third hand (as opposed to first hand), then I think it's bullshit.

I can't speak for any gay person - you, my cousin, my brother-in-law, my neighbors, and many others who have been, or are, in my life in a variety of ways - but when those associated with gay people in their own lives use it as a tool or weapon in some ideological or sociological fight, as some sort of reflexive, PC-shield, then I have a problem.

I think (and I could be wrong on this) Althouse does this on occasion.

All live. The bassist is Les Claypool from Primus. Learned about the CD from a friend who saw the show in SF's Grat American Music Hall. (they would cover an influential album once a year for several years running).

"Also get the Floyd comparison with the Stereo Chromatique stuff, which I think simply means it sounds good on earphones, stoned."

Sadly, I don't do stoned anymore.

I knew too many casualties.

For real.

Ruined lives.

Don't mean to get on the soapbox, just sayin'

...but there are times...

Anyway, the good thing is, I can listen to Floyd totally sober, and it's as if... good times. Long ago.

And yes, I hope so. THIS YEAR.

I didn't like the switch to Kaepernick - the Rams game in St. Louis was a disaster - and I thought he mismanaged the NFC Championship and Super Bowl games, but in the long run (where's Keynes, lol?!), he'll be better than Alex Smith.

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